Tag Archives: music

The Writer’s Fuel: Deconstructing the Rhythm of Creation

The process of writing a novel is rarely the romantic, quiet affair popular culture suggests. It’s a relentless, daily negotiation against distraction, self-doubt, and the sheer, overwhelming complexity of the story itself. This is especially true when working in the demanding arenas of horror, crime, and psychological thriller, where the narrative is built not on comfort, but on the precise, methodical construction of anxiety.

There is a profound difference between wanting to write and achieving the sheer disciplined momentum required to complete a book. Every author needs a system. A personal, potent sonic cue that acts as a switch, instantly filtering out the chaos of the mundane world and establishing an unwavering internal rhythm. For me, that essential catalyst is the instrumental piece, “Kids,” by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein.

This track, instantly recognisable as the main emotional motif from the Netflix series, Stranger Things, is far more than just background atmosphere. Its rigid, almost hypnotic construction doesn’t just put me in the mood; it acts as a direct psychological trigger, linking the creative task to the relentless, determined drive of my youth. When that synthesizer pulses, the internal machinery starts, and the procrastination stops.

The Analogue Comfort and The Psychology of Achievement

Though I wasn’t actually born in the 1980s, I grew up completely saturated in the decade’s pop culture thanks to my older siblings. This track is pure, distilled nostalgia for that era: the moody aesthetic, the synthesizers, and the low-fidelity tape hiss.

But the true power lies in its connection to 80s and 90s gaming. That chugging, repetitive synth rhythm directly mirrors the soundtrack of those classic platformers. That music was the pervasive sound of creative resilience. It accompanied hours spent replaying the same difficult section, accepting ‘Game Over’ again and again, driven by a simple, unyielding truth: you can only achieve the final victory through unrelenting repetition.

When I put on “Kids,” it doesn’t just create atmosphere; it instantly resurrects that deep, old-school gamer motivation: I will solve this puzzle, I will beat this level, and I will not quit until I master the pattern. That psychological state; the acceptance of initial failure coupled with absolute determination, is precisely what’s needed to tackle a complex, demanding chapter.

Deconstructing the Sound: A Four-Part Blueprint for Narrative Tension

The track’s brilliance lies in its disciplined, incremental build-up. It offers a clear, four-phase structural blueprint for managing and escalating narrative tension, which I follow almost unconsciously when drafting:

Phase 1: The Eerie Pulse (0:00 – 0:34)

The track begins with a simple, resonant sine wave that pulses like a low, anxious heartbeat. This is the Immersion Point. There is no melody, just repetitive, slightly dissonant rhythm. This phase forces me to clear the mental clutter and establish the core atmosphere of the scene: the creeping dread, the sense that something is fundamentally wrong. It’s a hypnotic ritual that silences the internal editor and demands I commit to the mood.

Phase 2: The Core Melody and Focus (0:35 – 1:05)

A second, slightly melancholy synthesizer voice enters with the main theme. This is the Character Commitment Phase. This new layer introduces the main human element—the protagonist’s specific objective, their private vulnerability, or the deep, personal connection driving them forward. The music clarifies the central narrative task: focus solely on the character’s emotional trajectory and motivation for the scene.

Phase 3: The Build, Noise, and Dissonance (1:06 – 1:40)

The rhythmic elements thicken, and a subtle layer of dissonance or “noise” is introduced into the background. This is the Creative Struggle Phase. The music is now demanding that the narrative tension escalate. This is where I push through the difficult structural knots: the protagonist’s careful plan collapses, the dialogue exposes a painful truth, or the scene twists into outright conflict. The conflict in the music mirrors the struggle on the page.

Phase 4: Full Momentum and The Unstoppable Flow (1:41 – End)

The rhythm machine hits its full stride, the synths swell, and the main theme is played with confidence and urgency. This is the Climactic Flow State. Everything the previous sections built up is now in motion. This sound compels me to write with speed and clarity, driving the action, the final devastating reveal, or the critical choice that provides the chapter’s powerful hook. The pace is no longer anxious; it is urgent, powerful, and utterly unstoppable.

The Final Beat: Why This Rhythm Defines My Genre

The fundamental reason “Kids” fuels my writing is that its structure perfectly embodies the psychological architecture of my genres.

My work in horror and psychological thriller isn’t about jump scares or shoot-outs; it’s about the relentless, methodical erosion of the protagonist’s sense of safety. The track’s constant, quiet pulse, which never fully resolves, becomes the blueprint for the story’s overall tone. It forces me to withhold resolution until the final beat, mirroring the experience of the protagonist who is trapped in an anxiety loop.

The music’s slow, controlled escalation teaches me that maximum tension is achieved through restraint, not chaos. It reminds me that the most terrifying revelation is the one that arrives on time, measured, and inevitable, just like the bass synth, the ultimate, terrifying comfort of a known rhythm.

The Four Chord Rule: Finding Originality in Established Structures

The terror of the blank page often stems from the awful realisation that everything has been done before. As both a writer and a musician, I face the same anxiety: every plot has been written, and every chord progression has been played. But this is actually a comfort. The greatest storytellers and songwriters know that the building blocks are finite; originality lies entirely in the unique combination, the personal rhythm, and the emotional performance we bring to those established structures.

The Formulaic Foundation

In music, most popular songs famously rely on the same four basic chords. A story is no different: it often uses the same fundamental universal plots, whether it is a quest, a tragedy, or a simple coming-of-age. The framework is fixed, but the voice is unique. This means the scaffolding is strong, and our labour is focused on building something distinctive on top of that established base.

This fixed structure is something I see in my love for RPGs (Role Playing Games). Every campaign operates within rigid systems, defined by established lore and core mechanics. Novel writing has its own set of immutable rules, defined by genre conventions. The fun, and the opportunity for originality, lies entirely in the improvisation, the clever narrative choices, and the character decisions made within those restrictive systems.

Pacing and Rhythmic Execution

Originality is often found in the pacing, which I see clearly in tennis, padel, and pickleball. All these racket sports are based on anticipation and rhythm. You spend the whole point waiting for the opponent’s move, setting up the decisive return. A novel operates similarly: you anticipate the reader’s expectation and then subvert it with a rhythmic surprise.

This links directly to songwriting. A good song needs dramatic contrast: a quiet, reflective verse that explodes into a huge chorus, or a shift in the bridge. A novel needs this same rhythmic variety. The pace is made original not just by the sequence of events, but by how long you force the reader to wait between the action and the explanation. The execution of the rhythm is the art, and that is unique to the author.

The Voice as the Unique Melody

The most fundamental piece of originality is the voice, which is best illustrated by the guitar. Take a simple G-chord: played by ten different musicians, it sounds different every time because of their individual touch, the subtle tone of the instrument, and the emotion behind the playing. In a novel, a universal plot, like a quest for a magical item, is made entirely unique by the protagonist’s voice and perspective.

In RPGs, the rules are set, but the player’s choices and the character’s personality dictate the outcome. A lawful good cleric will approach a problem completely differently from a chaotic rogue. Your novel’s originality resides here: in the specific way your protagonist would react, fail, or succeed. It’s not about the plot itself, but the unique filter of the narrator’s consciousness.

The Art of the Final Performance

Ultimately, the terror that everything has been done before is a structural illusion. The reader does not ultimately care if your plot is entirely new; they care if the performance, the prose, the emotional truth, and the unique combination of familiar elements, feels authentic and compelling to them.

The highest ambition for any creative person is not to invent a new chord or a new story structure, but to take those familiar chords and write a song that only you could have written. True originality is not found in the material; it is found in the deeply personal process of its creation.

Music vs. Metre: Why I Love Lyrics but Struggle with Formal Poetry

It’s one of those strange, contradictory quirks of my creative personality: I am a profound lover of music, someone who hangs on every single word of a well-crafted lyric, yet I find myself unable to fully engage with formal poetry on the page. I know, I know—lyrics are poetry, structured into verse and chorus with metre and rhythm. But for me, the difference is vast and entirely down to the delivery system. The same profound words that move me when carried by a favourite melody leave me cold and struggling to connect when presented in their bare, printed form.

The Saving Grace of the Soundtrack

For me, the melody is the saving grace, the element that makes lyrics immediately accessible and powerful. Music provides the emotional scaffolding and the necessary context that allows the words to land effortlessly. The bassline can convey heartbreak, and the rhythm can communicate urgency; the words simply have to fill in the detail. This means the emotional labour is shared between the musician and the lyricist, allowing me to fully absorb the story without feeling blocked by the form.

Furthermore, lyrics are usually delivered as part of a communal, performed experience. Whether I’m listening on headphones or at a gig, there’s an immediate connection to the artist’s intent and emotion. This is a fundamental contrast to reading poetry, which often feels like a solitary exercise where I must actively work to excavate meaning from the dense, exposed language. Music offers a pre-packaged emotional journey; poetry requires me to build the entire journey myself, which is where I hit my creative wall.

The Tyranny of the Blank Page

My struggle with formal poetry is rooted in the sheer effort required to decode the structure and find the emotional hook. When words are stripped down and presented in stark, deliberate lines on the page, the form—the specific rhyme scheme, the strict metre, the unusual line breaks—often feels demanding. Rather than sounding like natural speech or expressive emotion, the words sometimes feel like they are bending to service a clever structural rule, and I find myself scrutinising the form rather than simply feeling the content.

This difficulty is compounded by the lack of context. Without the propulsion of rhythm, the emotional cues of instrumentation, or the energy of a singer’s voice, the isolated words of a poem feel demanding and inaccessible. They sit there, static and exposed, forcing the reader to spend valuable time decoding the structure before engaging with the meaning. I suppose I simply rely on music too heavily; I need the words to travel in the vehicle of song for my heart to open to them. And don’t even get me started on the idea of poetry slams…

The contradiction remains a simple matter of creative preference: I am utterly devoted to the words, but I need them to travel in the vehicle of song. It’s not that I don’t like poetry, it’s that I just can’t seem to do it.

What is your own strangest creative contradiction—the one thing you want to love, but find yourself unable to connect with?

The Soundtrack of My Story: How Music Fuels My Writing

For some authors, the writing process is a quiet, contemplative affair, a solitary journey into the silent corners of their imagination. They need absolute stillness to hear the whispers of their characters and the rhythm of their prose. I, however, am a writer who finds my muse in noise. My creative process is a full-on, high-volume experience, a symbiotic relationship between words and sound that begins and ends with music. Just as a film has a score to guide the audience’s emotions, my stories have a curated soundtrack that fuels every plot twist, every character’s internal struggle, and every climactic moment. Music isn’t just a backdrop; it’s a living, breathing part of the story itself.

The “Get Psyched” Mix

Every single writing session begins the same way for me: with my Spotify playlist. Inspired by the legendary Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother, I have a meticulously curated playlist I call my “Get Psyched” mix. It’s a dynamic mix of everything from stadium-rock anthems to electrifying film scores, and it serves as a launchpad for my creative energy. This isn’t just background noise; it’s a tool I use to shift my mindset from the mundane reality of my desk to the boundless possibilities of the fictional world I’m building. The first thunderous chords are like a switch, turning on my imagination and getting me ready to step into the world of my characters.

From Sound to Scene

Once the music is on, the real work begins. I don’t just listen to music while I write; I actively use it to shape the scenes themselves. I’ll often find myself picturing a specific moment in my story—whether it’s an epic chase or a quiet moment of reflection—and then searching for the perfect piece of music to fit that scene. For instance, the epic, building feel of “Sirius,” the classic Chicago Bulls theme song, can perfectly capture a character about to face their fears or step up to the climax. The driving beat and soaring horns are the audio equivalent of a character’s rising courage, of gathering their strength just before the big moment. Similarly, the work of Hans Zimmer is a constant source of inspiration. His grand, sweeping scores: from the ominous, building sound of The Dark Knight to the iconic, mind-bending layers of Inception, allow me to craft a sense of scale and epic drama, helping me to build a scene that feels as cinematic on the page as it would on the big screen. The music becomes a direct guide for the emotional tone, dictating the rhythm and intensity of the words I write. If the song swells with strings, the scene swells with emotion; if the beat quickens, so does the pace of the action.

The Guitar Solo as a Climax

My deep-seated love for rock music has given me one of the most powerful metaphors that I use for my stories: the guitar solo. Think about your favourite rock anthem. The song builds, the rhythm section locks into a powerful groove, and then, the guitar solo arrives. It’s a moment of pure, unbridled energy and emotion that takes all the previous tension and releases it in a brilliant flash of sound. This is exactly how I see the climax of a story. The plot builds, the characters are pushed to their limits, and then the final confrontation or revelation hits with the force of a blistering guitar solo. It’s that one moment that you’ve been waiting for, the peak of the emotional journey that brings everything together in a single, powerful burst. The solo isn’t just notes; it’s a catharsis, just as the climax isn’t just action; it’s a release of all the built-up narrative tension.

So, the next time you’re reading one of my novels, know that there’s a good chance a rock anthem or a soaring film score was playing in the background. My stories are not just words on a page; they are a symphony of sound and story, where every beat and every chord is working in harmony to create a world that only I can tell.